Objectives

Our objectives in the study were:

To know which states have the most competitive electoral environment and which states have the least competitive electoral environments in 2010.

To collect data about the overall competitiveness of the 2010 state legislative elections. "When we first started building state-by-state lists of state legislative candidates, we were surprised at the number of seats where there was minimal or no competition. It was especially surprising because many observers on the national level regard 2010 as a highly-competitive election environment." The picture that emerged as we continued our study suggests that this is not the case at the level of state legislative elections, despite a relatively high degree of voter discontent. Our guess is that even many highly-engaged or newly-engaged political activists are unaware of the opportunities that exist for expanded electoral competitiveness at the level of state legislative elections. These observations led us to develop and present an empirical study of this phenomenon.

To develop a Competitiveness Index that can used in future years, so that political observers can assess the ebb and flow of state legislative election competitiveness over time.

Incumbents in primaries

Since 4,985 incumbents ran for re-election in 2010, that means that only 22.7% of them faced a primary challenger.

3,852 incumbents (77.3%) running for re-election in 2010 had no primary challenger.

Although this data did not come into play in our Competitiveness Index, we also noted that of the 1,133 incumbents who did have a challenger:

12 incumbent Democratic senators were defeated in a primary.

7 incumbent Republican state senators were defeated in a primary.

40 incumbent Democratic state representatives were defeated in a primary.

37 incumbent Republican state representatives were defeated in a primary.

Altogether, 96 incumbent state legislators who ran for re-election in 2010 lost in a primary. This is 8.4% of the 1,133 who had primary opposition. It is 1.9%, when compared to the 4,985 incumbents running for re-election.

Major party candidates with no competition

There are 1,971 state senators and 5,413 state representatives. There are only 24 total third party legislators out of 7,384 total state legislators. Thus, a major party candidate is virtually guaranteed election when facing third parties.

In 320 (27.4%) of the 1,167 senate seats up for election, there is only one major party candidate running for election

In 1,680 (33.9%) of the 4,958 house seats up for election, there is only one major party candidate running for election

Given that major party candidates win nearly 100% of the time, a candidate running without any major party opposition is essentially assured election -- even if there are third party candidates.

There was only one major party candidate in 2,000 (32.7%) of the 6,125 seats up for election in 2010. Nearly 1 in 3 districts holding elections that November fielded only one major party candidate.

States

In addition to compiling the national information above, we also took the state-level data to determine which states had more competitive elections versus the others. Below are the top three and bottom three most competitive states.

Primary challenges

North Dakota: 0.00%. In North Dakota, 0 out of 56 incumbents running for election in 2010 faced a primary, which means that 100% of the 56 incumbents running automatically advanced to the general election.

Colorado: 1.56%. In Colorado, 1 out of 64 incumbents running for election in 2010 faced a primary, which means that 98.44% of the 64 incumbents running automatically advanced to the general election.

Connecticut: 2.38%. In Connecticut, 4 out of 168 incumbents running for election in 2010 faced a primary, which means that 97.62% of the 168 incumbents running automatically advanced to the general election.

Most competitive states

New Hampshire: 74.22%. In New Hampshire, 239 out of 322 incumbents running for election in 2010 faced a primary, which means that 25.88% of the 322 incumbents running automatically advanced to the general election.

Maryland: 66.87%. In Maryland, 109 out of 163 incumbents running for election in 2010 faced a primary, which means that 33.13% of the 163 incumbents running automatically advanced to the general election.

Nebraska: 61.90%. In Nebraska, 13 out of 24 incumbents running for election in 2010 faced a primary, which means that 39.10% of the 24 incumbents running automatically advanced to the general election. Nebraska is a unicameral legislature.

No opposition

Least competitive states

South Carolina: 70.16%. In South Carolina, 87 of 124 seats up for election contain only one major party candidate, meaning in 29.84% of the races there are Democratic and Republican candidates.

Wyoming: 68.00%. In Wyoming, 51 of 75 seats up for election contain only one major party candidate, meaning in 32.00% of the races there are Democratic and Republican candidates.

Arkansas: 66.67%. In Arkansas, 78 of 117 seats up for election contain only one major party candidate, meaning in 33.33% of the races there are Democratic and Republican candidates.

Most competitive states

New Hampshire: 1.89%. In New Hampshire, 8 of 424 seats up for election contain only one major party candidate, meaning in 98.11% of the races there are Democratic and Republican candidates.

Maine: 2.69%. In Maine, 5 of 186 seats up for election contain only one major party candidate, meaning in 97.31% of the races there are Democratic and Republican candidates.

Michigan: 2.70%. In Michigan, 4 of 148 seats up for election contain only one major party candidate, meaning in 97.30% of the races there are Democratic and Republican candidates.

Overall ranking

We ranked the states for all three categories according to least competitive to most competitive. Then, by adding up the three rank categories, we were able to arrive at a cumulative ranking for all 46 states with elections.

Additional data not used in Competitiveness Index

Years of service

State senator Fred Risser of Wisconsin has been in office longer than any other state senator, having first been elected to his current seat in 1962. His seat was not up for election in 2010. The seat of Dave Nething of North Dakota, first elected in 1966, is also not up for re-election. However, the seat of Norman Stone of Maryland, also first elected in 1966, is up for re-election in 2010, and Senator Stone is running again.

Lacey Putney of Virginia has been in office longer than any other state representative, since 1962. However, his seat was not up for re-election in 2010. Three state representatives have been in office since 1964:

After the raw data were obtained, our staff analyzed the states to determine if there was noticeable partisan difference as well as the difference between states with and without term limits.

With such a large number of districts holding races -- 6,125 -- there is a high probability of consistent change in the number of candidates running. In fact, each week there is likely to be at least one candidate who either drops out of the race or is disqualified. Thus, we have done our analysis based on most of the original, official lists of candidates that were filed as of early September. It is expected that throughout October there will be some candidates that drop out which would have changed the final tallies of this report.

However, the discrepancies are an extremely small percentage of the total number of districts and are thus a statistically insignificant difference.

The data in this report is current as of October 1, 2010.

See also

References

↑The eleven state legislative chambers that did not hold a general election on November 2 included both chambers in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia and the state senate in Kansas, New Mexico and South Carolina.